Gull and the girl held their breath as the phantom leaped at the blue cloud.
And through it.
The results were nothing they could have predicted.
Fire met water, it seemed. A tremendous whoomph! shook the air, beat upon the ears as if boxed.
The djinn exploded into errant puffs of steam. They dribbled upward like smoke from a doused fire.
The nightmare skidded to a halt, shook itself like a dog from a pond. Its fire had dimmed until the night was almost black, but now it reignited.
High above, the dribs and drabs of smoke re-formed, coalesced, became a magic man again.
Snorting fire, the nightmare attacked. The very air sizzled from the fierce blaze. Where its hooves tipped burned trunks, the wood crackled and caught fire.
Its power increased as it attacked, the woodcutter saw. So did its flame. So far, only the fact the forest had already burned saved them from a conflagration. But if the flaming beast burned hot enough, the heat might scorch even these charred trunks of fire-resistant bark, ignite their heartwood.
'Come, Lily!' he tugged her. 'We need to get inside the circle!'
She didn't resist, just hesitated. Over the noise of burning wind she asked, 'But… what's happening over there?'
Gull gaped. He'd forgotten the other wizard's camp. Now the bonfire burned higher. He stepped past a trunk to see better. Silhouetted before the blaze, the siver-armored figure issued orders.
Only now it was bigger. Closer.
Striding great lengths, swinging gold-chased armored limbs, the wizard was so massive and heavy, it sank to its ankles in the soft forest loam.
And around its legs capered a horde of skeletons.
The skeletons were small, no taller than children, of slight build. Their jaws were long and lined with pointed teeth. The spiny silhouettes jiggered before the distant bonfire, impossibly thin and disjointed, yet alive.
Skeletons of goblins, Gull realized. Those vicious, conniving, skulking thieves. Alive, they were useless. Perhaps they served better dead…
With a shrill neigh, the captured cavalry horse reared, jerked the reins from Gull's hand. He let it go. 'We should run too! For the camp! And don't stop!'
They heard the skeleton army now. Piercing piping cries, like a colony of bats, carried on the thick night air. Overhead, the nightmare rushed the cloud-man again.
Of a sudden, Gull's mind couldn't encompass the strangeness. Phantom horses, armored titans, squeaking skeletons, cloud-people, dead and undead zombies, all haunting a blasted forest. If he dwelt on them, he'd panic or go mad. He forced them from his brain. Get Greensleeves, he told himself. Get his sister and run as if devils pursued. For probably they did, somewhere in this vast mad landscape.
Towing Lily, he lurched for the camp, until he could make out sweat-shiny faces that gaped up at the phantom battle and out at the armored wizard and his bony horde.
Overhead, the nightmare again plowed through the blue cloud-man. This time, however, the shredded blue mist dribbled away on the night air, faded to nothingness. It did not re-form.
Clearly, the nightmare ruled the night.
Triumphant above the treetops, the horse-thing snorted and stamped, stronger and brighter than ever. It was so hot that sparks spit from it like steel burning in a forge. They landed in the camp and winked out like fireflies.
But Gull couldn't see much of the camp now. A fog was rising, as mist issues from a swamp. Panting, running into it, his eyes stung. This was smoke. Ground-hugging smoke such as campfires spilled when the weather turned dirty.
No one had touched the cookfire, no trees burned much, yet the smoke thickened as if the night itself smoldered.
'More damned magic,' Gull wheezed.
Squinting, half-blind, the woodcutter and dancing girl stumbled past the overturned men's wagon, tripped over the jutting tongue. Somehow, Gull realized, the wagon had been dumped over again, or slewed around: the top was toward the center. A good thing, for the bottom formed an outside wall.
Someone challenged them, and they gasped their names. Guided to Morven, they hunkered behind the tipped wagon seat. By now the smoke was so thick the campfire was an orange smudge. Gull couldn't see any more than Morven's gray-white hair.
'What happened to the wagon?' rasped Gull.
'We tried to hoist her, got spooked, and dumped it the other way,' muttered the sailor. 'It's a cock-up for certain. This smoke don't help none. One of Towser's less thoughty spells. Smoke's good for driving off animals and people, but it won't hamstring that armored bastard or his bony buckos. Might kill the fleas in me blanket, though.'
'How can-' Gull hacked, sneezed. 'How can you jest?'
He felt more than saw the sailor shrug. 'Ye get used to it after a while. Tow waves his hands and shit falls from the sky. Just keep your chin down and mouth closed. None of us've been scuppered yet.'
'The old freightmaster died.'
'Oh, aye.' Another shrug. 'But he left the circle of protection. Poor Gorman was more for shovelin' dung than thinkin'. I just hope Towie can pull something out of his sleeve. That armored monster looks like he'd eat through a wagon in three bites.'
'What would he do to us?' Gull snorked. Like the rest of the entourage, he breathed through his hands or clothing while watching the oncoming horde. Through billows of gray smoke, they saw it wasn't a hundred feet off.
At least the terror had abated among Towser's followers, for the nightmare hovered at treetop height to the south, opposite the armored wizard, as if marking a beacon in the sky. Towser had slipped into his wagon.
Morven rubbed watery eyes. 'Oh, probably they wouldn't eat us or torture us to death. Steer clear and you don't run afoul, usually. We're just ants to wizards. We'd be scattered to the winds, like happened at your village there. Oh, sorry. But I'll bet this pirate's after that coral box. If it's brimful o' magic energy, like Towie said, it's a magnet for handwavers all 'round the compass.'
'Maybe Towser will just give it up,' murmured Gull.
Morven and Lily snorted.
Gull clasped and unclasped empty hands. Without a weapon he felt helpless, naked. He was, mostly, clad in a leather kilt and nothing else. He told Lily to stay put, then clambered past them to the toppled chuck wagon.
He didn't get far. The wagon was a tumbledown mess. Heaped together against one canvas wall were boxes, crocks, bowls, loaves of bread, cooking tools, bedrolls, spilled flour and beer and wine and butter. Perched atop the mess, with a shawl over her head, was a besmudged Felda clutching Greensleeves tight, with Stiggur huddling behind. Gull's sister slept. One advantage to being half-witted, he thought, was few worries. She clutched something gray, like a tassel of horsehair, and he wondered where she had found it.
The fat cook asked him what transpired, but he ignored her. He'd come to check on his sister and to fetch his small axe, stored with his saws and other tools behind some crates. But he'd have to unload the wagon to get it now. He asked Felda for a weapon and received a poker of heavy steel and a butcher's knife which he slid carefully into his belt.
He told them, 'If there's any need to get out, I'll come fetch you. Otherwise, stay here.' No one argued.
Gull climbed out in time to see the skeletal goblins disappear.
The smoke had lessened, settling, leaving a burned tang in their mouths and a rash like sunburn on their faces.
Capering around the armored wizard, like sparrows before a raven, the skeletal goblins had spun, shrilled, waved stick-arms-generally acted like useless idiots, as in life. Gull was unsure if they were a threat or not: what could they do but bite you? And one swift kick would knock them to skittles.
Now, one by one, each gave a queer sort of hop, spun around, shriveled into a twist like a beech leaf, and flickered toward the sky like chaff caught in a dust devil.
From Towser's wagon came a crow of delight and triumph. Sleeves shot to the elbows, the wizard dusted his palms as the last of the skeleton horde whisked away like ashes in a wind.
